Hello All,

Glad to be participating in the small business forum.

I am a new wholesale business start up, selling home & garden decor accessories, wedding, catering & hospitality utilitarian products. I am looking for ways to market them to retailers & other bulk buyers. Will wholesale representatives do a better job marketing these products? How do I find them and network with them? Are there better ways other than this? I am working on constructing my company's website right now. Any thoughtful suggestions on wholesale business websites?

All of your suggestions are appreciated. Thank you.

By that I mean do you manufacturer or process any of your products or do you simply buy them from someone else?

Hello Sweet Gum.

Take a look at this marketing program and see if it helps with what you need.

www.smallbusinessmarketing.ws

There are lots of ways to reach bulk buyers. You might consider using trade magazines targeting bulk buyers. (ex. Swapmeet)

Kent, I buy them from manufacturers and act as an independent distributor of their products.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Then you have to be carefull who you choose to sell to so that you don't run into the sales organizations of the people that you buy from selling to the same customer. The result will be that you lose the sale. And, if you haven't informed the real wholesaler of what you're doing you could lose them as well.

I import all my products. Hence, my interests don't clash with the actual manufacturer. I have got all my internal structure & operations in place. I have built my website for bulk buyers. I need help with the sales and marketing. I have been researching on the web for hours and finally found the small business forum website. So, I wanted to post my challenging problem and get advice.

I am thinking the best way to go is with wholesale reps & direct mail list. But I am facing problems with how I can exactly do that?

Could you give me some pointers in that directions, or what are your thoughts about it?

You have two options. Option one is to sell your products in yourself. Option Two is a Broker (who sells the products in) and a distribution system that delivers the products to the consumer. There are rack jobbers who buy your products and resell it to their customers however, most of them have been relegated to perishable items.

For example with your garden supplies, if you want to sell to Home Depot, call them up and find out who the buyer is for those products, make an appointment and go sell them. Or call them up and inquiry nicely if there's a brokerage that they prefer to work with and that you are hiring a broker to handle your products ....

Hope this helps. By the way brokers can be hard to find for those not knowing what to look for. Most are listed as non-food brokers, or sales representative firms.

Actually there are other options. The major one is to go ahead and use what are referred to as either Manufacturers Representatives or Manufacturers Agents. These are either individauls or firms that, rather than work for a single company, sell products for as many as possibly 50 different companies. They generally stay within a single market, or a couple of related markets.

In your case, they may sell to garden centers and also hardware stores, possibly paint specialist and automotive, as well.

They seldom represent competing lines, unless they are in different price ranges. A hardware rep might sell for a ladder company, a spray paint equipment company, a hand tool line, maybe garden tools like hoes and rakes, possibly a couple of areosol chemical lines, spray paint, etc.

Learn more about mfg. reps by simply googling manufacturers representatives - you'll find a lot of info and possibly several reps to work with. Most are state or regionally aligned. NYC may have half a dozen with the same firm, but generally there will be one or two "men" in any given state.

Thank you all for your valuable suggestions & information.